You mention how it's relatively light, but right now all my running is generally at or below IM intensity as you suggest, which is pretty much true of the bike as well.

You did around a 1/3rd of your TSS training on the bike, but in the event you'll be doing quite a bit more (getting on for half), and you only did a proportion of it at your intensity, I can't estimate the TSS split for the running/swimming, but it looks to me like it's more run as although you're a strong runner, you're still doing 60km, so rather than 45/45/10 as the energy demands of the day will be, you're biasing away from the bike (of course swimming is more technique than energy from the training anyway so it's probably actually worth just completely ignoring it here)

So I'm seeing IM swim doing more per week at race intensity, IM run doing more per week at IM intensity, but IM bike you only 3 hours of biking intensity, and at 19:30 park laps, that's only about half your bike?

I had imagined your split not including such a long bike though when you said the 8 hours, the 5.5 hours at 0.7 is likely a very good practice, but I do think the inconsistent pacing is a lot easier than steady pacing, ie I don't really trust the calculations.

In proper bike shape, 5 hours can certainly be done at over 0.8 IF in training, and certainly think you could race it harder, although that starts becoming more of an issue fueling as you will need extra calories but may be too hard to really eat them - heat and stuff also impact it, and you certainly don't want to knacker your subsequent training by going too hard of course.

Your 100mile TT plan sounds sensible, I do wonder if your shorter rides are a bit too easy, as they wouldn't hurt you much more to do it that little bit harder?

Thanks for that. Useful comments. I would somewhat agree with you on the shorter bike intensity. Having self-coached before now, with the guidance of trainerroad, my midweek sessions would have often been more taxing intervals. But what I'm doing this year is my coaches approach and I'm going with it. It's achieved decent results at 70.3 by being more race intensity specific, and doing my first full I'd probably rather go in having had a bit of room to have trained more, as opposed to overcooking myself a couple of months out.

I'm following a similar progression to what I did for 70.3 earlier in the year, in terms of building up the time spent at target IM power. So a few weeks ago it was 3*15 mins at IM intensity during one session of the week. This week there are two sessions, one of 3*20 (4mins rest) and another of 4*15 (3mins rest). The long bikes are also slowly increasing the target amount of time to spent at target race power, so initially 4*(15 at c75%, 15 at c60%), then 4*(20 at 75%, 10 at c60%), and so on.

You are also right there's currently quite a run focus. I think that's somewhat two-fold. I've had a bit of a drop off in run fitness (mixture of causes, not injury though), whereas the bike has stayed more consistent, so that is the current focus in terms of building the run back up (Sunday's 30k was my longest run since London mara 2017!). And it's true to say, my coach is more of a run guy, so the split does tend to be slightly heavier on that discipline than some other coaches. There's another frequently used coach within our club and he's more renowned for being a bike guy. I know people who have switched after a couple of years with one or the other to get a slightly different focus.
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Everyone responds differently to training stimuli, but I think you need to do more bike volume, less running. In the years I was running 3:30 off the bike, some weeks I'd only run twice if one of those was a long run like 30km; the other one was 30-40 min tempo, and in my peak phase, a little 15 min brick after the long ride. I just find bike TSS easier to recover from - less impact. Again, commuting 5 days a week made me stronger on the bike, which had the effect of improving my triathlon run times too, with no additional run training.

Being younger helped too.
_________________27 Years since it all began....

Everyone responds differently to training stimuli, but I think you need to do more bike volume, less running. In the years I was running 3:30 off the bike, some weeks I'd only run twice if one of those was a long run like 30km; the other one was 30-40 min tempo, and in my peak phase, a little 15 min brick after the long ride. I just find bike TSS easier to recover from - less impact. Again, commuting 5 days a week made me stronger on the bike, which had the effect of improving my triathlon run times too, with no additional run training.

Being younger helped too.

I imagine the bricks will come again. Pre-70.3, I had progressively longer brick runs in the lead up.

What would have been your longest runs then? I have to say, I kinda feel like I do need the run volume. Before the past two weeks, I'd only done the following:
w/c 04/06 - 15.3k (illness)
w/c 28/05 - 22.4k (10k of which was an Oly race)
w/c 21/05 - 20.5k
w/c 14/05 - 21.6k (post-70.3 & 10k of which was an Oly race)
w/c 07/05 - 34.5k (21k of which was the 70.3)

So it's been really light for quite a while. As I say, my run fitness numbers were on a quite dramatic decline. From what I understand, I'm on a c4wk cycle to get some longer steady distance in, and then it becomes more specific again in the lead up. I'm only running 3 times a week. And you are right, I think the ramp back up in volume will be leaving its mark fatigue wise (which is why I think the bike stuff is all staying relatively light right now as a compromise).

It's definitely interesting to hear what others think though. The debate aspect gives the thread a bit more purpose, rather than just posting up aggregated numbers each week.
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What would have been your longest runs then? I have to say, I kinda feel like I do need the run volume.

Well, before I used a GPS watch, it was just time & HR Zones; and that was when my running was at it's best (again I was much younger). So before my first IM, I only did 2x 2h 'long' runs in Upper Z2/Low 3. I generally didn't do many Bricks either, and when I did they were only 15 min or so. Moving on to my PB year (ran 3:30 dead), I didn't even keep a diary that season (dammit!) but again I was running to duration, normally they were runs home from work the scenic route; building from 2h to 2:15, just keeping it upper Z2 (easier to recover from - more on this in a bit). Aagin, not really any bricks to speak of, just plenty of consistent volume including 5 commutes/week.

In came the GPS for IM #4. Great, but I found I was a slave to pace/ego, and pushed it a bit hard at times, to achieve a target pace. Still commuting, so lots of bike strength. Getting a calf injury probably saved me from myself that year, and I still managed a workman like 3:34 with no walking. By the time I got to IM 5-7 I wasn't commuting anymore, so lacked a bit of bike strength - my splits in events were similar, but the run off them was way weaker, further exacerbated by going off too fast - again the GPS watch is to blame here, not running to RPE. The last three IMs, I've upped the longest runs to 30km, never longer, but again a slave to pace tbh, which tended to tire me out. Particularly last year, when I ran 10km Bricks after every long ride, and at around 4:45/km which tbh is overly optimistic at my age now, and given my lack of relative bike strength.

It's great to have all the GPS/pace data, but I think there's a lot to be said for just going out and doing the long run by RPE/HR and not knowing the pace. Maybe wear the watch on your ankle Coincidentally, at the 113 the other week, I forced myself to run to RPE/HR from the off, and it was the first HIM/IM run I've done without cramp for many years.....
_________________27 Years since it all began....

Again, useful info. My coach is actually all about running to duration, and mainly HR when we started together although now it's mainly by feel. All my training peaks sessions are along the lines of

"90 mins Easy Aerobic"

"60 mins General Aerobic, plus 6 x 100m strides"

"Long run: 2 hrs 20 mins"

In terms of how I approach them, the general aerobic ones are normally at around 5mins/km or a little quicker, but that's mainly what I've learnt from using HR all through the winter. The long run I'm doing at roughly target IM pace so maybe 10s/km faster than the above.

HR wise, Sunday was a fraction skewed this past week because of the heat, but all the "general aerobic" runs are done at just under 140 average (there will be moments where they creep up depending on terrain), and the long runs have been at 140-150. That compares with my HM pb in the spring of 178 average HR (max 185), and a recorded overall max in XC over the winter of 198.

Based on the above, I would say most of my running is fairly steady as well? I'm very rarely hitting anything approaching my HM average HR ... there's a fairly short sharp climb to get back to my flat from battersea park area and I'll get into the 160s during that, but for example my 60mins aerobic run last Thursday only hit a max of 155.

EDIT - reading back, "all about running to duration" is slightly misleading, in a race specific context. Leading into my HM pb, one session per week was all about increasing reps at target race pace. So they built from 30mins at target race pace in the middle of a 70min run, to 40 in the middle of 80, 3*15 in the middle of 90, etc, and finishing with a 8k race simulation run.

So pace is a part. But only when specialising. And I've not really run at anything like those HM speeds since the entire focus became 70.3 and full distance after that race.
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Biggest training weekend yet, I have IM Switzerland in 4 weeks time. On Saturday I did a 200km ride, my first IM distance ride since my last IM, however, ride included 2800m climbing, then did a 10km BRICK. Today I did a 37km run in 33 degree temp

I really enjoyed riding yesterday, however, today really began to question why I am doing this

A really lousy week for me, various crappy reasons. My friday run this week I set out to meet Maryka who was running (I thought) south along the river, so I was heading north expecting to do somewhere around 12-16km depending on where I met her. I felt rubbish though when I set off, so I was well behind where I would've met her - although it turned out she ran the other way so I never would've anyway.

Despite the crap feeling I still ran all the way to Richmond and back so 22km run, my 3rd fastest half marathon, my legs felt it a bit the next day and my normal saturday morning run was very easy, but the last 5km was still sub 4/km pace despite it so not so bad.
_________________Jibbering Sports Stuff

Second big week in a row. 20/20 scheduled sessions completed per TP over the last fortnight. This coming week will be lighter due to an enforced weekend off (stag do), hence a slightly intentional overloading for the last couple of weeks. TSB currently at -55! But that should recover to more normal levels in the next week.

Another big weekend in particular, with a century ride on the TT on Saturday morning, 4.5k OW Sunday morning, and 30k run in the evening.

This coming weekend I have my first 100 mile TT, which I will likely do at IM pace I imagine. So run volume will be down a bit as well
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My coach has confirmed this coming week is my last really big one before things begin to tail off. The end is in sight!

As for the week just gone:
3 swim covering 9k in 2hrs30
3 bikes covering 285k in 8hrs15 (inc a 100 mile TT). Total TSS was 440.
3 runs covering 45km in 3hrs25

Total TSS for the week was 911. Training Peaks had my week end (multisport) CTL as 119, which is the highest it's been all year (and all time).
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4 days of drinking (circa 20-25 bottles of beer per day) and throwing some shapes at Tomorrowland

Midnightman in 3 weeks time. What can possibly go wrong??

At least I have trained on the sleep deprivation front. Average 3 hours sleep per night!
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In my weekly totals were the rides to and from the start/finish line, and that was c6.5k in a little over 15mins. So really I was 431 TSS in c8hrs. That's just under 54 TSS/hr.

The oversight you are making is that if 100 TSS/hr is IF 1.00, then c50 TSS/hr is roughly IF 0.5. That's wrong, seeing as the formula for TSS is IF^2 x time (hrs) x 100.

Due to the square power, 431 TSS in 8 hrs equates to an average IF over the rides of c0.735.

e.g. 0.735^2 * 8 * 100 = 432 TSS

So what that says is I spent the bulk of my time at planned IM IF, which is unsurprising really given most of my sessions are currently geared towards dialling in prolonged intervals of target IM power, and that I spent 4:45 at 0.73 IF in the 100TT.